Digital Rights Management systems vs. users' privacy

At the time of their introduction, Digital Rights Management systems were often triumphantly presented as the decisive technological response to digital piracy. However, shortly after their introduction, it became clear that this technological protection presented a rather small but costly speed bump on the digital highway, leading to the protected content and not a panacea for this undesirable phenomenon. As a result, Digital Rights Management systems have undergone crucial transformation. With their further development, Digital Rights Management systems ceased to focus solely on combating piracy and started to collect vast amounts of information about the users and content usage for various purposes. This book describes the crucial stages of this process, and it evaluates the extent of the threat to the privacy of users. It also offers non-legal insight by adding social and economical views on the development in the field. [Subject: Computer Technology Law, Data Protection Law, Digital Piracy Law, European Law]